Accessibility Statement

Shine is built so that anyone — including people who use screen readers, keyboard navigation, magnification, voice input or assistive switches — can discover apprenticeships, jobs, training and university routes. We treat accessibility as a launch requirement, not an extra.

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at Level AA across every public page and every flow that a candidate or employer needs to complete a core task (signing up, applying for a role, posting a role, paying for a plan, managing settings).

• Semantic HTML landmarks (header, main, nav, footer) on every page.
• A visible "Skip to main content" link as the first focusable element on every page.
• Form fields with persistent visible labels, helpful placeholder text and clear error messages announced to assistive technology.
• Keyboard support for every interactive element — including custom controls like accordions, tabs and dialogs (built on Radix UI primitives).
• Focus styles that meet WCAG 2.2 contrast and thickness requirements.
• Colour contrast tokens designed to pass AA in both light and dark modes.
• Alternative text on meaningful images; decorative images marked as such.
• Captions and transcripts on Day-in-the-Life videos wherever provided by the contributor.
• Reduced-motion support — animations respect prefers-reduced-motion.
• Embedded payment forms (Stripe) and authentication providers chosen partly for their own AA conformance.

We're honest about gaps. As of the effective date above we know about:

• Some user-uploaded videos may not have captions yet — we prompt every contributor to add them and are rolling out auto-captioning for new uploads.
• The embedded Stripe checkout iframe is governed by Stripe's own accessibility standards. If you hit a barrier inside the payment form, please tell us — we can arrange an alternative payment method.
• A small number of decorative gradients on the home page may not yet be perfectly tuned for high-contrast mode. We are tracking this.

• Automated checks during development (axe-core, Lighthouse).
• Manual keyboard-only walkthroughs of every critical flow.
• Screen-reader spot checks with VoiceOver (macOS / iOS) and NVDA (Windows).
• Live user feedback from the Shine community.

If you can't use part of Shine, or if something is harder than it should be, we want to know. Email us at contact@shineai.tech with the page URL, what you were trying to do and which assistive technology you use. We aim to acknowledge within 2 working days and resolve or provide a workaround within 10 working days.

You can also raise concerns via our Privacy Notice contact route, or contact the UK Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) if you believe we have not met our obligations under the Equality Act 2010.

• WCAG 2.2 Level AA (W3C)
• UK Equality Act 2010 — duty to make reasonable adjustments
• UK Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 — followed as good practice even though Shine is private-sector